Object-based encoding in visual working memory: A life span study

Zhang, Qiong; Shen, Mowei; Tang, Ning; Zhao, Guohua; Gao, Zaifeng

doi:10.1167/13.10.11

Cited by 12 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(63 reference statements)

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“…Since the current study aimed at elucidating whether the irrelevant element could be extracted to WM and the potential index reflecting this modulation could be different under different experimental conditions (see footnote 1), it was important to avoid reaching a null result due to insensitive indexes. To this end, we followed previous studies (e.g., Ding et al, 2015;Ecker et al, 2013;Kirmsse, Zimmer, & Ecker, 2018;Zhang, Shen, Tang, Zhao, & Gao, 2013), recording and analyzing both the response accuracy and RT (see Table 1 for the descriptive statistics of the current study). For the RT, only trials with correct responses were entered into further analysis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agent identity drives adaptive encoding of biological motion into working memory

et al. 2019

Journal of Vision

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To engage in normal social interactions, we have to encode human biological motions (BMs, e.g., walking and jumping), which is one of the most salient and biologically significant types of kinetic information encountered in everyday life, into working memory (WM). Critically, each BM in real life is produced by a distinct person, carrying a dynamic motion signature (i.e., identity). Whether agent identity influences the WM processing of BMs remains unknown. Here, we addressed this question by examining whether memorizing BMs with different identities promoted the WM processing of task-irrelevant clothing colors. Two opposing hypotheses were tested: (a) WM only stores the target action (element-based hypothesis) and (b) WM stores both action and irrelevant clothing color (event-based hypothesis), interpreting each BM as an event. We required participants to memorize actions that either performed by one agent or distinct agents, while ignoring clothing colors. Then we examined whether the irrelevant color was also stored in WM by probing a distracting effect: If the color was extracted into WM, the change of irrelevant color in the probe would lead to a significant distracting effect on action performance. We found that WM encoding of BMs was adaptive: Once the memorized actions had different identities, WM adopted an event-based encoding mode regardless of memory load and probe identity (Experiment 1, different-identity group of Experiment 2, and Experiment 3). However, WM used an elementbased encoding mode when memorized-actions shared the same identity (same-identity group of Experiment 2) or were inverted (Experiment 4). Overall, these findings imply that agent identity information has a significant effect on the WM processing of BMs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agent identity drives adaptive encoding of biological motion into working memory

et al. 2019

Journal of Vision

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“…Gao et al, 2011; Z. Gao et al, 2010; Serences et al, 2009; Shen et al, 2013; Woodman & Vogel, 2008; Yin, Gao, et al, 2012; Yin, Zhou, et al, 2012; Zhang et al, 2013; Zhao et al, 2018), most of them focused on static visual objects. However, biological motion is essentially an event (Shipley & Zacks, 2008); an event is a higher level cognitive structure than an object, for instance, a segment of time at a given location for an object is considered as an event if the observer perceives a beginning and an end (Zacks & Tversky, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gao et al, 2011; Z. Gao et al, 2010; Shen et al, 2013; Yin, Gao, et al, 2012; Yin, Zhou, et al, 2012; Zhang et al, 2013; but see Bocincova & Johnson, 2019; Serences et al, 2009; Woodman & Vogel, 2008 for a different view). If VWM adopts a similar encoding manner for biological motion, we would predict an event -based encoding for biological motion, that is, even if only one element of an event is required to be memorised, the irrelevant elements of an event will also be extracted into VWM.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Event-based encoding of biological motion and location in visual working memory

Wan

et al. 2020

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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We make use of discrete yet meaningful events to orient ourselves to the dynamic environment. Among these events, biological motion, referring to the movements of animate entities, is one of the most biologically salient. We usually encounter biological motions of multiple human beings taking place simultaneously at distinct locations. How we encode biological motions into visual working memory (VWM) to form a coherent experience of the external world and guide our social behaviour remains unclear. This study for the first time addressed the VWM encoding mechanism of biological motions and their corresponding locations. We tested an event-based encoding hypothesis for biological motion and location: When one element of an event is required to be memorised, the irrelevant element of an event will also be extracted into VWM. We presented participants with three biological motions at different locations and required them to memorise only the biological motions or their locations while ignoring the other dimension. We examined the event-based encoding by probing a distracting effect: If the event-based encoding took place, the change of irrelevant dimension in the probe would lead to a significant distraction and impair the performance of detecting target dimension. We found significant distracting effects, which lasted for 3 s but vanished at 6 s, regardless of the target dimension (biological motions vs. locations, Experiment 1) and the exposure time of memory array (1 s vs. 3 s, Experiment 2). These results together support an event-based encoding mechanism during VWM encoding of biological motions and their corresponding locations.

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“…colours, shapes, orientations, sizes) 5 6 8 14 15 17 , and with different encoding times (e.g. 100 ms, 1000 ms) 5 ; it also remains constant throughout age from 6 to 72 years 19 . Moreover, the maintenance of irrelevant information in VWM can last for at least 1000 ms after the offset of the memory array 20 and is not modulated by the probability of the irrelevant-feature change, exhibiting the distracting effect with an irrelevant-change probability of 16%, 20%, and 50%.…”

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confidence: 99%

Object-based Encoding in Visual Working Memory: Evidence from Memory-driven Attentional Capture

Gao

Zhu

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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Visual working memory (VWM) adopts a specific manner of object-based encoding (OBE) to extract perceptual information: Whenever one feature-dimension is selected for entry into VWM, the others are also extracted. Currently most studies revealing OBE probed an ‘irrelevant-change distracting effect’, where changes of irrelevant-features dramatically affected the performance of the target feature. However, the existence of irrelevant-feature change may affect participants’ processing manner, leading to a false-positive result. The current study conducted a strict examination of OBE in VWM, by probing whether irrelevant-features guided the deployment of attention in visual search. The participants memorized an object’s colour yet ignored shape and concurrently performed a visual-search task. They searched for a target line among distractor lines, each embedded within a different object. One object in the search display could match the shape, colour, or both dimensions of the memory item, but this object never contained the target line. Relative to a neutral baseline, where there was no match between the memory and search displays, search time was significantly prolonged in all match conditions, regardless of whether the memory item was displayed for 100 or 1000 ms. These results suggest that task-irrelevant shape was extracted into VWM, supporting OBE in VWM.

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Object-based encoding in visual working memory: A life span study

Cited by 12 publications

References 45 publications

Agent identity drives adaptive encoding of biological motion into working memory

Agent identity drives adaptive encoding of biological motion into working memory

Event-based encoding of biological motion and location in visual working memory

Object-based Encoding in Visual Working Memory: Evidence from Memory-driven Attentional Capture

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